Robert Haley Asher was born 28 March 1868, to Josephus Marion Asher, who was the first commercial nurseryman in the San Diego area, providing fruit trees, shrubs, & vines from his Fruit Vale ranch in Paradise Valley, National City. Robert Asher settled on Palomar Mountain in 1903, & ultimately had 160 acres, living in the Pauma Creek / State Park area. Robert Asher also lived off Palomar Mountain part of the year working as a nurseryman. On Palomar, Asher took & sold photographs of summer campers, sold postcards of his photos, trapped animals for pelts, collected & sold wild plants, picked apples, & worked odd jobs. Asher moved off Palomar Mountain in 1946 to his sister Mrs. Josephine A. Vacher’s place in El Cajon & continued to visit Palomar Mountain until 1951. Asher passed away on 25 April 1953.

Asher’s 1903 memoir is missing pages, and starts in April 1903. Covers Asher's move to Palomar Mountain. Covers Asher's trip to Idyllwild to attend the School of Forestry and a trip to the San Jacinto Mountains with Willis Jepson and Arnold Stubenrauch. Covers Asher's native plant collecting for Carl Purdy. "When, in 1903, an influential group of Los Angeles citizens, concerned about forests and watershed protection, approached the University of California, President Benjamin Wheeler called upon Jepson and Professor Arnold Stubenrauch of the agriculture department(?) to conduct what turned out to be a very successful forestry summer camp at Idyllwild in the San Jacinto Mountains. The 10 lectures which Jepson delivered dealt with “Life-history of a Tree,” “Classification of Forest Trees,” and “Forests of California.”" FROM Willis Linn Jepson—“The Botany Man”. Richard G. Beidleman, 2000.